Weathering It
by Xanrivash
Summary: Demyx may have survived the witch's torture chamber, but his ordeals are far from over...now he has to recover from it, with some help from his friends.
1. Thaw

"I believe the worst is most likely over. Your fever has gone down considerably, and other symptoms have greatly decreased."

Axel just nodded lazily in response, still feeling rather lethargic, though at least his head wasn't pounding so much and his throat no longer felt like he'd been doing sulfuric acid shots with boiling vinegar chasers. "So...guess that means I'm back on duty?" he asked, still a bit croaky - maybe his throat didn't hurt as much as it had, but talking still wasn't fun.

Vexen pursed his lips, shaking his head and looking at Axel as though questioning his intelligence - granted, that was how he usually looked at Axel. "Anyone else, yes, but not in your case. The situation with your blood glucose -" Axel couldn't help but groan slightly. Just because he was diabetic didn't mean he was made of glass. "Eight...this is critical to your continued survival. If your blood glucose level rose too high or fell too low, the consequences could be disastrous. And even mild infections, especially those that cause you to lose your appetite, can have unpredictable and potentially severe effects."

Axel had only heard that about a zillion times before. Maybe Vexen was utterly convinced he couldn't be trusted to take care of himself, or maybe he just liked to drive Axel batshit. Did he even have enough of a semblance of a sense of humor to enjoy driving Axel batshit? Probably not, but at least this time, he was also giving him an excuse to stay off-duty for an extra few days. "I know that," he grumbled, glaring down at his insulin pump - no amount of time off was worth that. "So that means no. And for God's sake, _don't_ take the opportunity to say 'no' in five long sentences. Please, by all that was ever held holy, _just say the word 'no'._" That just about killed his throat to say, but the rest of him felt a little better for getting that out. When Vexen got going, his lectures in medicalese could rival anything Xemnas had to say about Kingdom Hearts for boredom, and left Demyx's musical philosophizing in the dust for length (though Xemnas had them both beat there).

The temperature in the room dropped about five degrees, though it wasn't like Axel noticed. Vexen waved a hand as if to dismiss him, but as soon as he opened his mouth to confirm that verbally, an unignorably loud buzzer sounded, making the Chilly Academic jump with more genuine alarm than Axel had ever seen him display before. As soon as he figured out what that buzzer probably meant, he stopped breathing and all but ran after Vexen as the older man left the room - good God, it was probably Demyx. The gentle musician was fragile and accident-prone enough at the best of times, but right now - after the living hell he'd been through in the blood witch Malenisa's torture chamber - it had been almost two months, but still, he was so weak, so frail - he was a complete invalid, unable to sit up or feed himself or even roll over - even if he'd just caught whatever Axel was just getting over, it might be enough to cause permanent harm, or - or even -

Much to his shame, Axel actually breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Roxas and Fori in the front room of the hospital wing, obviously waiting for Vexen. That temporary relief turned quickly to shock and concern when he saw that both boys looked from the state of their clothing to have been stuck in a running cement mixer for an hour or two, though there were no obvious outward injuries - probably thanks to Fori, who could heal anything from a mild scrape to a severed appendage in seconds to minutes. But while neither of them sported any mild scrapes or missing appendages, Roxas was cradling his left arm in a very particular way that told Axel immediately that it was broken. One of the few things Fori could not fix was broken bones. Axel was at Roxas's side in an instant, hugging him carefully and looking him over for any injuries Fori might have missed. "Roxas, what happened? Are you all right?" he asked, not caring how dumb or obvious the question was.

Roxas just leaned heavily on him, apparently in too much shock and pain to answer right away, but Fori quickly caved under Vexen's glacial glare. "Um...we were having a...sorta...impromptu skateboarding contest?" he explained, the nervousness in his voice turning the statement into more of a question at the end. "And...um...we both kinda wiped out at the end...and...uh..." He swallowed as Axel added his poisonous look to Vexen's. "Well, I, uh, did what I could, but...well, you know...I don't do fractures too well...you know that...so..."

Vexen gave him a look that quite clearly said "I'll settle _your_ hash later, and don't think you can get out of it", and led Roxas off into the X-ray room. Axel was left alone with Fori, and he really didn't have anything to say to the little demon that couldn't be expressed just as well with a glare. He had no clue whose idea the skateboarding contest might have been - he could easily believe it had been either of theirs, or both at the same time - but he was going to blame Fori for it anyway, since he had all the healing powers and Roxas didn't. Fori, who seemed quite aware that Axel wanted to grind him into the dust, didn't say anything either. They just stood there in a frigid and very uncomfortable silence for who knew or cared how long, until Roxas and Vexen returned. Roxas still looked rather listless and woebegone, but Axel quickly moved over to him, putting a hand on his good shoulder and all but pushing him out of the hospital wing - the better to allow Vexen to tear Fori a new one, as he deserved. "You seem a little out of it," he said as they went down the hall, noting that Roxas's arm was now in a cast. "Concussion or painkillers?"

"Some of both, I guess," Roxas answered, managing a faint smile. "Guess I shouldn't have suggested that contest..."

So the contest had been Roxas's idea after all. Axel wasn't in a hurry to turn around and tell Vexen that. Instead, he just smiled back and tried to think of something they could do now - there was no question that Roxas was going to be on the disabled list for a few weeks. Now their biggest problem would be keeping him entertained while he was stuck home with his arm in a cast...and Axel swallowed hard at that, a pang of guilt running through him as he remembered that someone very close to them both had much bigger problems than they probably ever would. "Let's go see Demyx," he said in a softer voice than he'd intended.

Roxas nodded, the fact that he'd gone to visit him before breakfast notwithstanding. "That's a good idea...he's probably pretty bored..." he agreed, his voice even more subdued. "I'm sure he'll appreciate it..."

* * *

Demyx's room always had such a tragic, morbid feel, now; it was usually dark and unnaturally silent and there was always a body on the bed. Granted, it was technically a live body, but...well, Demyx was anything but lively now. He was always lying in pretty much the same pose, flat on his back staring at the ceiling, though not by choice - he just plain couldn't move. And any attempt someone else made to move him, or even to touch him, would cause him unimaginable pain. Sometimes, Axel looked at him and wondered whether it was a good thing he'd survived the torture he'd suffered at the hands of the blood witch Malenisa - well, if he hadn't survived the first day or so, Axel would also be dead, and Roxas would still be Malenisa's slave. But after those few days, after Malenisa was killed...when the murderer had been brought to final justice, and her innocent victim's agony went on and on...it would have crushed them all if he'd died, when they were all rooting so hard for him to live, but maybe it would have been better for Demyx...then instead of a world of pain, he'd be in a world of peace... Axel shook his head at himself. The room really did inspire morbid thoughts. He turned on the light, trying to drive them back; Demyx blinked a little and smiled at them, but it was only a weak smile, that seemed to have little real emotion behind it. When he saw Roxas's injured arm, his expression transformed into a very genuine frown of concern. "Roxas, what happened to your arm?" he asked in a soft voice. "Are you all right?"

Roxas smiled weakly in return and gently stroked Demyx's hair - about the only form of physical contact that wouldn't cause Demyx any more pain. "Just a skateboarding accident. I'll be fine," he murmured. "How are you holding out?"

Demyx tried to force a smile again, but it was even weaker, this time. "I'm still alive...that's a good thing, right?" he asked, but something in his tone made Axel's blood run cold, like even Demyx wasn't sure it was really a good thing. Or maybe he was just being stupidly morbid again. "Haven't seen you around for a few days, Ax," Demyx was saying, drawing Axel back to reality. "Did you just forget, or were you gone on a long mission?"

If Axel had been gone on a long mission, he would have made very sure to warn Demyx beforehand, since assignments for missions longer than overnight were usually given the day before departure, not the day of. But he would never, ever just forget to visit, and only Demyx's mildly joking tone kept him from feeling hurt. "I was sick for the past few days," he explained, trying not to look at Demyx's left hand - he didn't want to get used to the fact that he only had three fingers on that hand now. Malenisa had known he was a musician, and deliberately maimed his hand with the aim of causing more than physical pain. "Vexen didn't want to risk you catching it, so he told me not to visit." He breathed an inward sigh of relief as his brain caught up with his mouth - now that he thought about it, he knew Roxas would have told Demyx about it, so Demyx had to know the reason, and was therefore still feeling lively enough to yank his chain for his own amusement. "I'm better now, but he doesn't want me back on duty for a few days yet, just in case my blood sugar does something stupid."

He was secretly even more gratified when Demyx gave him a critical look. "Does he think you're made of glass or what?"

"Yes," Axel said with a weak chuckle - in that room, it was the best he could do. "He has since I was diagnosed. And I haven't had a major blood-sugar crisis since Fori joined, but still...he's convinced that whenever I get sick or injured, a diabetic death spiral is just around the corner." Demyx made a weak noise that sounded like a chuckle, and Axel panicked as soon as he heard it. "Oh, God. Demyx, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you laugh..."

Axel's only thought was for how much pain Demyx had to be in, given that he had a full rack of broken ribs and almost all the skin on his chest peeled off, but Demyx stared at him as if he'd grown another head. Almost as soon as Axel noticed it and tried to formulate an intelligent response, like "Why are you staring at me like that?", he found himself being dragged out into the hallway so fast his arm started to come out of its socket. "What in Kingdom Hearts's name is with you?" Roxas demanded, before Axel could try to come up with an intelligent question to ask him instead. "_You're_ complaining that _Vexen_ treats _you_ like you're made of glass? Then what do you call the way you're treating Demyx?"

Axel's brain ground to a halt temporarily, trying to comprehend the fact that Roxas was chewing him out for being careful, of all things, and his mouth went on without it. "I was just being careful with him!" he sputtered, not wasting time on thinking. "I mean, do you have any how much pain he must be in..."

He trailed off as Roxas held out his broken arm for inspection. "Probably not an exact idea, but I do have one," he said grimly. "Maybe I've never been through everything he has, but I have broken every rib on one side before, so badly Vexen had to operate on them. And I had a broken arm and a broken leg at the same time. Plus unspecified internal injuries. Vexen wouldn't tell Fori any specifics, just told him to clean up the blood." Axel stared blankly at Roxas for a moment, then cringed deeply - of course; that stupid car accident. "Not to trivialize whatever pain Demyx is in, but only to mention that you didn't treat _me_ like a glass statue. You definitely never panicked and apologized for making _me_ laugh."

Axel glanced away for a moment, torn between anger and embarrassment. "I was as big a mess as you were at the time," he mumbled defensively. "Besides...this wasn't an accident. That demented bitch could have killed him..."

Roxas's eyes glinted with anger and pain. "You're telling me," he said in a tight voice. Axel could have punched himself - of course, Malenisa had forced Roxas to watch while she tortured Demyx. He'd been under a spell at the time that made him unable to care less about Demyx's fate, but the knowledge after the fact that he'd just stood by while one of his "big brothers" went through _that_...well, Roxas had been the one to kill Malenisa eventually, but Axel wouldn't be shocked if he frequently wanted to go back and hack at her corpse. "But that's another thing," he continued when the painful memory had passed. "The way you act whenever you're in his room - you act like you're in a funeral parlor with a corpse on display. You talk just barely above a whisper. You act like if you just breathe on him a little too hard, he'll curl up and die. If he was half that fragile, he'd have died weeks ago - Kingdom Hearts, you panicked when he tried to laugh a little! Is he not allowed to _laugh_ ever again? If I wasn't, I'd curl up and die just from that!"

Axel would almost prefer getting a lecture from Xemnas. Sure, Xemnas could verbally flay you in front of the Organization and make you wriggle like a worm on a hook in private, but Roxas's informed and personal touches stung like hell and made Axel feel like crawling back into Demyx's room and asking his forgiveness on hands and knees. And Roxas could cover a much broader range of subjects. And delivered a hell of a lot more lectures, at least to Axel. "I was just being careful," he protested weakly. "I mean, God knows he's in enough pain already..."

"So in order to spare him a little more pain, you're going to forbid him from laughing for how long?" Roxas retorted in a withering tone. "Until he's out of bed? Fully ambulatory? Back on duty? Xigbar's age? Come on, Axel. Demyx is fully capable of deciding on his own if it hurts too much to laugh, and if it does, he can stop laughing on his own. He doesn't need your help to tell him when enough is enough." Axel felt three inches tall and shrinking by the second. "Besides, you seem to think he hasn't recovered the slightest bit the whole time he's been here. I'll have you know that his broken bones are mending perfectly well, and his skin is well on its way to regrowing completely. I bet you could give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder without him screaming in agony. You might even let Connie back in his room. The worst she could do to hurt him is pounce on his crotch, and I know Malenisa didn't touch that. In fact, I'm sure the only reason Demyx hasn't told you any of this himself is because he's too shy to tell you to knock off treating him like glass already."

Two inches and still shrinking. "How do you know all of that?" Axel asked, feeling physically as well as psychologically trounced. "I mean...about how well he's recovering?"

"I live next door to Fori," Roxas said with a touch of smugness. "He talks twice as much as Vexen and Zexion put together. He's a wellspring of information. That's how I know the only thing Demyx is in serious danger of dying from right now is boredom."

If Axel shrunk much more, he'd probably disappear. "I guess that makes sense," he mumbled, looking at his shoes. It made entirely too much sense. Demyx could do pretty much nothing for himself; Axel knew that...but he'd been only thinking of how helpless that made him. How mind-bogglingly _bored_ he had to be never entered his mind. "But...why the hell does he never say anything?"

"Because he's Demyx," Roxas said impatiently. "Kingdom Hearts, Ax - he knows you're worried to death about him; of course he wouldn't complain, because he knows you'd freak out!"

If Axel really was as tall as he felt right then, Roxas would have needed a microscope to continue the conversation. "Um...so...when he stopped asking me to play CDs whenever I came in...and stopped really caring when I did so on my own..." That had secretly terrified him no end, because if Demyx became indifferent to music, the end was surely near.

"He must be bored sick of every CD he owns," Roxas said, rolling his eyes. "You know what - try giving him some real music to listen to. A live performance. You know where he keeps his guitar, right? I know you know how to play it. Play it for him. Play one of his own compositions - he'll be flattered. Just do whatever you have to to keep him entertained. Kingdom Hearts knows he needs someone to."

"Yeah. Sure. I can do that," Axel said - anything to get Roxas to leave him alone, at this point. "In fact, I might just do that right now. I can probably get under his bed all right."

Much to his surprise, when the two of them returned to Demyx's room, Demyx was wearing a broad grin that said clearly he was fighting not to laugh. "Thanks, guys," he said in an almost choked tone, as if afraid that saying too much would make him crack up - and Axel didn't think he had only his own comfort in mind. "That _was_ entertaining."

Axel was ready to sink into the floor, and even Roxas looked a bit discomfited. "Don't tell me you heard that whole lecture," Axel groaned, knowing full well that Luxord and Zexion probably heard that whole lecture, if they were in their rooms.

Demyx's grin broadened, if possible. "I did. I have to say, it was nicely done, Roxas. A first-rate verbal curbstomp. Being treated like glass gets old, and I am usually bored out of my skull." Roxas rubbed the back of his neck modestly. "One question, though. Since Axel will be going back on duty long before you are, why did you put the entire burden of keeping me entertained on him?"

As far as Axel could tell, Roxas didn't even waste time trying to come up with an answer of any quality. He just turned bright red and looked as if he wanted to sink into the floor. What he'd done to Axel over the course of a lecture, Demyx had done to him with one pointed question. Axel couldn't help but give the musician a discreet thumbs-up, and Demyx grinned like the Cheshire cat.

* * *

"That was mean, at least as far as you go," Axel said conversationally as he uncoiled Demyx's feeding tube, attached a clean funnel to the top, and started running a disinfected saline solution through it - specially prepared by Vexen to keep the tube clean. "Why'd you have to knock poor Roxas down like that?"

"Because after the lecture he gave you, he was thinking like he was Dr. Phil or something," Demyx answered, watching the procedure with a sort of detached interest. Axel wondered how he managed - if that was his stomach the feeding tube was plugged into, he'd be creeped out no end. "I had to take him down a peg or three before he got the idea he could read you the riot act whenever you did something tactless, clueless, or insensitive without thinking about his own missteps. Plus that was a pretty tactless omission on his part. I mean, he does have a lot more time off coming than you do."

"That's a relief," Axel said as he gave the medicated nutrient mixture another stir - this was what passed as Demyx's lunch, and Axel couldn't imagine it being delivered any way other than a feeding tube. He didn't think any sane person would actually ingest that crap. The rest of the Organization still at the castle was eating in the kitchen right now, including Roxas, but Axel had made himself a sandwich earlier so he could be here "feeding" Demyx right now. "I was afraid the abyss had been staring back or something, or the real Demyx had died and been replaced by his evil twin Skippy. Specially cloned and raised by Vexen just for the purpose, which explains the evil part."

Demyx cringed deeply as Axel started pouring the slurry into the funnel. "Ah, Gods, I hope he hasn't been cloning me for _any_ purpose. Or any of us, for that matter. That's just too disturbing to contemplate."

"Well, we could ask Roxas to ask Fori about it," Axel said casually as he adjusted the flow so it wouldn't go too fast. "I mean, Fori's probably where Vexen gets all our blood samp-"

"Axel!"

"What, am I not allowed to mess with the invalid? Roxas said to knock off treating you like glass."

"I hope your evil twin murders someone and you get blamed for it."

Axel stuck out his tongue as he encouraged the last of the slurry down the funnel. "Given that it would be Vexen raising said evil twin, I'd bet the first one he'd murder would be me, followed by Marluxia. On second thought, Marluxia can get murdered by his own evil twin. I wouldn't even want my twin to dirty his hands with that prissy pill."

Demyx chuckled weakly at that, stifling himself when it got too painful. "Marluxia couldn't have an evil twin. In order for the cosmic balance to be preserved, he'd have to have a good twin. Same as Fori."

Axel nodded sagely at that as he ran more saline through the tube to clean it again. "And Zexion would have a stupid twin, and Lexaeus would have a talkative twin, and I guess Larxene's twin would be as tough and badass as cotton candy bunny rabbits..."

Demyx nearly choked. "Larxene and cotton candy bunny rabbits do not belong in the same sentence, okay? It's just wrong on a fundamental level."

Axel couldn't help but laugh out loud at his reaction as he coiled the tube back up and replaced its protective cap. "Oh, come on, Demyx, you're supposed to be the ridiculously generous one. Give her a little credit. She must have a soft spot somewhere. Granted, I have not the faintest clue where, but she must."

"I think you know exactly where all her soft spots are, Axel my man," Demyx said with a sage expression and just the right amount of knowing innuendo to make Axel blush a bit and glare. There was a moment of silence, then Demyx spoke up again on a different topic. "You know, now that you're actually talking to me, this is something like enjoyable. Not like before, when you seemed to think you'd break some sacred taboo if you said anything. And Zexion, who got the job when you were sick - he was as warm and personal as Vexen and maybe even slightly chattier than Lexaeus. Hell, I'd have preferred Lexaeus. Maybe he doesn't talk much, but that's because he just doesn't waste words, not because he thinks everyone is beneath him or that small talk is just an irritant. Zexion - it was like he was mad at me for needing to be fed." While Axel tried to puzzle out what Demyx might be getting at, if anything, Demyx sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "It's nice to know that even if it's the only thing I can do anymore, I'm still fit to carry on an intelligent conversation with."

Axel blushed even more at that than he had at the innuendo about Larxene. "I'm sorry," he mumbled as he gathered up the various accessories that needed to be returned to Vexen. "I...well...you've heard it already, haven't you? I'm sorry for being a pessimist and treating you like glass and all that shit."

Demyx gave him a cheeky grin as Axel ruffled his hair. "You're forgiven. Just don't do it again."

* * *

AN: I've been trying to write a story that covered this period almost since I wrote Blood Ties...and I think I've finally found the perfect balance between plot and angst. I'm even starting out with a nice dose of fluff so the angst will hurt more when it arrives. (Cue Cheshire-cat grin here.)

For those who've never read any of my stories before, you'll have to read Blood Ties to get the entirety of what's going on here, but to answer a few questions I've been asked in the past, Axel _is_ diabetic, Fori's full name is Foriuxocol (so it does have an X in it - his Other's name was Lucioforo), and Connie is Demyx's cat, currently staying in Axel's room along with Axel's cat Sol. It doesn't come up in this chapter, but Demyx is deaf and wears hearing aids. I know; I'm horribly cruel to them.

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and all associated characters belong to Square Enix and Disney. Foriuxocol, Malenisa, Solace, and Consolation belong to me.


	2. Thunder

"Roxas, _you're_ the epic fantasy lover of the bunch. What makes you think Demyx would want to watch Lord of the Rings? Especially the extended cuts?"

Roxas sighed, wondering why he had to defend his choice of DVDs to Axel, of all Nobodies. "Because he's never seen it, even in the theatrical cut. Because they're long and complex and will keep him occupied for a long time. Because they have just enough funny bits to keep it from being too deathly serious without being so funny he's apt to bust a gut. Because they have the best soundtrack this side of Broadway, and it's nothing he's ever heard before."

Axel continued to frown disapprovingly at the cases in Roxas's hands. "What makes you think he'd be even the slightest bit interested in it?"

"Because it's that or that ridiculous B-rated kung-fu garbage you're so hot on," Roxas replied, with maybe a touch more heat than was absolutely necessary. "Even I wonder how you can stomach it."

Axel intensified his disapproving frown and turned it on Roxas instead. "Hey, that is some good stuff I have, got it memorized? I mean, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet Li - these guys are legendary, thank you very much."

"Not for their acting skills, trust me," Roxas growled as he pushed past Axel into Demyx's room. Demyx was wide awake and wearing that knowing grin that said quite clearly he'd heard the whole conversation. Roxas just took it in stride. "So, Demyx, which would you rather watch?"

"Lord of the Rings, hands down," Demyx answered easily. "I _hate_ those kung-fu movies Axel watches all the time. Okay, he's got _some_ taste - I mean, some of those spy movies aren't half bad..."

"Bite me," Axel grumbled.

"Get in reach," Demyx suggested, baring his teeth and snapping meaningfully.

Axel just glowered at him and stepped back to let Roxas talk. "Don't go sulking away on us too quickly," Roxas said lightly. "Demyx and I have only one good arm between us, you know. That's not quite enough to get a DVD player going."

"Yes, have some mercy on us helpless cripples, O able-bodied one," Demyx added jokingly. "We are as nothing compared to you. Well, granted, seeing as we're Nobodies, we're not much of anything anyway..."

"Would you two quit?" Axel snapped, taking the first DVD case from Roxas. "Demyx, I swear, I liked you better shy and subdued. Roxas, I'd like you better right now if you were shy and subdued."

"Well, that's not going to happen," Roxas said casually. "So, are you going to watch the movie with us, or are you going to complain about our personalities?"

Axel sighed and held up his hands in defeat. "All right, you win," he groaned. "I'll watch your stinking movies with you." Trying to smother a triumphant grin, Roxas took the case back, put the first DVD in Demyx's DVD player, and located the remote while Axel propped Demyx up on a bunch of pillows. "You seemed to have handled the DVD player just fine with only one good arm," he grumbled at Roxas.

Roxas just glowered back at him, but Demyx gave him a Cheshire-cat grin. "Thank you so much for helping me sit up, Axel," he said in a voice that was all but fawning. "I know Roxas means well, but he could never have done that with just one arm..."

"_All right,_" Axel growled. "I get it. You two can stop harassing me now."

As he sank into Demyx's desk chair, Roxas reached over and ruffled his hair with a cheeky grin. "No, Axel, I'm afraid we'll never be able to stop harassing you. But that just shows we love you, you know?"

"I'm tempted to ask you to hate me just so you'd knock it off, but I have a bad feeling you'd be a hundred times as bad if you did," Axel mumbled, slouching a little further into his chair.

Roxas reached over and patted him on the head. "No, we wouldn't. We'd love you anyway."

* * *

"You know, living like this has its advantages..."

"I think all the advantages are sort of counteracted by what has to happen in order for us to live like this," Roxas muttered, giving Axel a look.

Axel couldn't come up with any snarky response to that, because Roxas had a very good point. "Yeah...but as long as it has to happen anyway, all of us being able to pile into one room for a while is a nice bonus. Were you going to buy this, or...?"

"Well, yeah, of course I was..." Ignoring Demyx's protest from the bed - Roxas had just blocked him from completing a set he'd had his eye on the whole game - Roxas carefully picked out the Monopoly money to pay for the square he'd just landed on. "Hey, this is a cutthroat game here."

"I swear, I will get you for that," Demyx muttered.

"Here's your chance," Axel said. "It's your turn." He rolled the dice on Demyx's behalf - in fact, he was rolling the dice for everyone, and acting as banker, as he was the only one with two working arms. "Nice...you got 12, which gets you an extra roll, sends you past GO, and puts you on...Reading Railroad."

Demyx cackled as he looked over the property cards arrayed on the floor in front of him, which currently included the Short Line, Pennsylvania, and B and O Railroads. "Oh, man, you know I'm buying that!"

Axel and Roxas both groaned as they realized Demyx now had all the railroads, plus Boardwalk. If Axel hadn't had Park Place, and Roxas the green set and both utilities, they might have thrown in the towel at that point. "You bastard...all right, second roll. Five and three, which puts you on...the electric company."

Now it was Roxas's turn to cackle, as Axel picked eighty dollars out of Demyx's funds and Demyx looked disgusted. "Oh, boy, did you ever get me for that!"

"Shut up," Demyx muttered, glowering at him. "Just wait until the next time you land on a railroad."

"All right, it's my turn..." Axel rolled a six, and landed directly on the Short Line Railroad. "Fucking dammit!"

Demyx laughed out loud. "That'll be two hundred dollars, please."

Axel flushed and rubbed his forehead, cursing under his breath - he didn't have two hundred dollars, thanks to his recent purchases. He only had about ninety. "Oh, fuck it all to hell...I just lost the game, didn't I."

"You could sell those hotels on Baltic and Mediterranean back to the bank," Demyx suggested with an ingratiating grin and a malicious sparkle in his eyes. "Or you could mortgage something. But I really think your hopes of winning are pretty shot."

Axel sighed and muttered more curses under his breath as he put the hotels back in the bank and replaced them with sets of three houses, effectively selling both hotels and a house each. "I never thought I'd ever say this, but I'm glad I'm going back on duty tomorrow...you two will be forced to cut each others' throats instead of mine." He counted up his money and came up with the answer one second after Roxas did, or the grin Roxas couldn't suppress when he did the math gave him away - ten dollars short. With an expression of utmost disgust, he sold back one more house on Mediterranean, scraped up the $200 he owed Demyx, and was left with a grand total of $15. "I'm so fucked..." he muttered as he rolled for Roxas.

Roxas's face brightened even further when the dice came up with 4, putting him on Chance. His face and his hopes fell like a rock from a cliff, however, when he read the card. "Advance to B and O Railroad...Demyx, I swear...and that's about the only railroad that wouldn't send me past GO to get there. Demyx...has Luxord been coming in here while we were out? Because I swear no other person could be that lucky...he must have been rubbing off on you."

Demyx just looked smug. "My luck consists entirely of being able to snap up three out of four railroads almost right off the bat, and then not having either of you beat me to the last one. The railroads are the key to winning at Monopoly. Remember that for the future. That, and I told you I'd get you for buying Tennessee Avenue out from under me."

Roxas glared malevolently at him, but couldn't really do anything about it right now. "I guess it's a good thing we won't be able to play once Axel gets back on duty, unless he gets a day off. At least not until I get my arm out of this stupid cast. Do you play chess this viciously?"

Demyx grinned cheekily at him. "If you're inclined to bring a board in tomorrow, you just might find out."

Axel rolled his eyes as he rolled the dice for Demyx. "There's one game I won't mind missing."

* * *

"If you've moved in there permanently, can I take over your old room?"

"Bite me, Foriuxocol," Roxas politely told the person on the other side of the bathroom door as he gave up struggling with his hair and returned to his room. He couldn't get his hair to behave at the best of times, but with only one hand, it was a hopeless cause. He knew he'd overslept, and probably missed breakfast, but he didn't care that much. He wasn't feeling particularly hungry anyway, though he didn't know why.

Cancel that. He knew exactly why. It was that nightmare.

He'd had the same nightmare more than once in the past - about being back in Malenisa's torture chamber, watching the witch take Demyx apart. And just like in reality, the more damage she caused, the less he cared. Even though he was watching one of his best friends being butchered and skinned alive, listening to Malenisa smash his bones with a hammer, he soon found himself enjoying the spectacle, and even wishing Malenisa would untie him and give him a chance with the knife. Thank Kingdom Hearts that the dream had ended before that happened...this time. It didn't always.

Skipping breakfast entirely - a nightmare like that could kill anyone's appetite - he headed for Demyx and Axel's rooms, hoping his friends could help cheer him up and calm him down. Unfortunately, knocking on Axel's door had no effect - he must have been gone already, on a mission or something. Demyx's door was unlocked, but the atmosphere in his room was back to seeming rather bleak and cold, like a hospital room, and Demyx himself didn't seem to be doing very well, though he did manage a wan smile as Roxas entered. "Morning," he murmured as Roxas entered. "You just missed Axel by ten minutes. When he told me you weren't at breakfast, I was afraid you were sick..."

"I just overslept..." Roxas went to sit down in Demyx's desk chair, only to find it occupied by a Siamese kitten who was industriously chewing on a catnip mouse. He sighed and resolved to stand for a bit. "I see Axel finally let Connie out of his room..." He glanced over to the bed, and saw a tiger tabby sitting next to the wall, apparently watching Demyx intently. "...And Sol."

Demyx nodded weakly. "Yeah, Sol sort of invited himself in and appointed himself my guardian for the day..." He sighed and closed his eyes, looking distinctly uncomfortable. After a moment, he opened them again, as if he realized Roxas was frowning at him with concern. "Sorry. I just have a brutal headache," he explained. "I may be becoming tolerant to all those painkillers...or maybe it's a rebound headache or something. My stomach isn't feeling too great either. Guess our chess game is off..."

Roxas picked Connie up out of the chair and set her down on Demyx's bed; she looked up at him in confusion, then went back to chewing on her catnip mouse. Roxas ignored her and sat down on the chair himself, resting a hand on Demyx's forehead. "You're not running a fever," he said with relief. "At least it's not an infection."

"Good," Demyx grunted. "That's what Axel told me, but I wasn't a hundred percent confident he could tell." He chuckled faintly. "Can you imagine the freakout Vexen would have if it was? Granted, an icy-calm, very precise sort of freakout, but still..." He squeezed his eyes shut, as if his head suddenly started hurting extra, and sighed; Sol stood up and paced stiff-legged over to the pillow, where he lay down again in a Sphinx-like pose. "Pity about the chess game...the past few days have been about the most fun I've had in two months."

Roxas chuckled and ruffled Demyx's hair gently, watching Connie play with her mouse. "Well, good...glad we brought some joy into your life..." He glanced back at Demyx and paused - Demyx's eyes were open now, wide open, and his face was a mask of sudden fear. "...Demyx? Are you okay?"

Demyx's eyes snapped sharply over to him, glinting with terror. "Roxas...get Vexen...now," he whispered urgently. He looked like he wanted to say more, but his eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, and he let out an unearthly scream as his entire body went rigid for a moment. Time seemed to move in slow motion as Demyx's entire body started to twitch and writhe, as if he was a puppet under the control of a drunken puppeteer. Roxas could only stand by and watch in horror as his friend was caught in the torturous grip of a devastating seizure.

The nightmarish scene seemed to last for hours, even though Roxas had never known Demyx's seizures to last more than four or five minutes at the most. Finally, finally, the horrible, unnatural movements came to an abrupt halt, and Demyx went limp as a rag doll. Roxas finally let out the breath he'd been holding the entire time, and was surprised to feel a bit lightheaded - he must have been holding it for a long time. Demyx almost never came around until several minutes after a seizure, so he didn't panic that he hadn't - until he saw Demyx's lips were becoming increasingly tinged with blue.

That often happened. Sometimes he stopped breathing for a few moments during a seizure. But the seizure was over. His lips should have been going back to their normal color.

He wasn't breathing.

On the edge of panic, Roxas yanked back the sheets, in case they were strangling him or something. Demyx still wasn't breathing, and there were horrible red stains starting to spread on the pale blue fabric.

That sent him over the edge. Opening a portal, he ran to the hospital wing so fast he slid on the floor and landed on his rear. "Vexen - help!" he babbled, without even seeing whether the Chilly Academic was there or not. "Demyx had a seizure - he's bleeding - he's not breathing - Kingdom Hearts, help!"

* * *

AN: AAAAAAAUGH!

Disclaimers: Kingdom Hearts and all associated characters belong to Square Enix and Disney. Monopoly belongs to Parker Brothers.


	3. Rain

Demyx came around feeling completely lost and dazed, which wasn't unusual for coming around after a seizure. What was unusual was how long he stayed lost and dazed - he didn't even know what room he was in, even after he had time and focus to think about it. He should have been in his own room, but the atmosphere was just wrong. And...and the pain...he hadn't been in so much pain since...

A brief vision of being chained to Malenisa's table, under her knife once again, burned through his mind, and he let out an involuntary whimper. To his surprise, he found a breathing tube wedged down his throat, forcing air into his lungs in a regular rhythm and impeding any attempt at speech. What the hell could that be doing there? What the hell had happened?

"I think he's coming around now." That was Roxas's voice, and Demyx tried to turn his head to focus on it. It worked surprisingly well, considering the pain the rest of him was in. Roxas was leaning over him, his eyes wide with fear and concern - and he was in the hospital wing; the hell was going on? "Demyx...Demyx, can you hear me?" Demyx nodded weakly, hoping for an explanation. "Thank Kingdom Hearts. I thought that seizure might have killed you. If Vexen hadn't been there when I got to the hospital wing..." He looked like he was about to cry, and Demyx wanted to reach up and wipe the incipient tears away, and comfort him...but just the faint movement of his arm was enough to make him gasp and cry out in pain, his voice muffled by the breathing tube. "Don't try to move," Roxas said almost immediately, his eyes widening again. "You managed to reopen some of your old wounds. That's why everything hurts so much, I guess." He seemed about to pat Demyx on the shoulder, then reconsidered. "You'll be all right. Just try to get some rest for now." Demyx wanted to ask how bad it was and where the breathing tube came in, but as he couldn't talk, and staying awake was torture, he saw no reason not to take Roxas's advice. His battered, confused brain wanted more rest anyhow.

When he woke up again, the breathing tube had been removed - apparently Vexen trusted him to breathe on his own now, which was a relief. He still felt hazy and unfocused, but everything didn't hurt quite so much now; he must have been given painkillers as well, probably through the IV bags he was just noticing, which was a relief. And there was a conversation going on in the hallway, which must have been what woke him up; he tried to focus his ears on it, grateful his hearing aids hadn't conked out. "-_not_ the kind of thing you want to come home to after a long day," Axel was saying, or that was what Demyx thought he was saying from behind the door. "How bad is it? It's gotta be bad or he wouldn't be here..."

Vexen's voice was easier to understand; Demyx's hearing aids just picked up on it better or something. "The seizure in and of itself seems to have been of unusual severity, but it does not seem to have resulted in permanent brain damage. There was temporary respiratory arrest due to an airway blockage, but that was easily resolved..."

Axel's voice rose ten decibels and an octave. "_He stopped breathing?!_"

"Eight, moderate your tone," Vexen said sharply. "And you might try listening and paying attention, though it be for the first time in your existence..." Then he lowered his voice, and Demyx had to strain to hear anything. Even then, he could only hear bits and pieces - in addition to everything else he couldn't do with two broken arms, he couldn't adjust the volume on his hearing aids. "...severe muscle damage...badly torn skin...permanent damage..." followed by more things he couldn't make out even that well, finishing up with "...don't mention any of this to Nine..."

Demyx's blood ran cold - permanent damage? What sort of damage? Well, Vexen had mentioned muscle damage, severe damage - would he never be able to walk properly again? Or bend his arms normally? Kingdom Hearts, if he lost the full use of his arms...he might as well lose his arms completely. He might as well die. Bad enough to lose fingers...if he couldn't use his arms properly, he'd never play anything again. Anything.

And Vexen didn't even want him to know about it.

As Axel came in, he forced his face into as cheerful an expression as could reasonably be expected. Inside, though, he was eaten up by fear and worry. If he wouldn't be able to play anything again, his life wasn't worth living. Without music, he _had_ no life.

* * *

Demyx didn't know how long he spent in the hospital wing; it was easy to lose all track of time in there. He knew that his current stay bore frightening resemblance to the first month or so after he'd been carried back from Angrejar in shreds and tatters, except his eyes weren't swollen shut this time - the near-total lack of visitors (Vexen would only let Axel and Roxas in for five minutes or so at a time, and apparently no one else at all, if anyone else tried), the total lack of news about the rest of the Organization, the disappearance of all sense or knowledge of time's passage, and worst of all, the pain and the nightmares. It was a toss-up as to which of the two was worse. The pain was unrelenting and agonizing, but constant enough to get used to; the nightmares were temporary and variable, but their variety only produced a cornucopia of fresh horrors whenever he tried to sleep. Most of them centered around Malenisa's torture chamber; the details of those, he did his best to force from his mind while he was awake. Some of them, however, focused on his life after "recovery" - as a cripple with twisted legs and useless arms, his body so horribly distorted by the damage the seizure had caused he'd never be able to feed himself again. The miserable lot he had right now would become permanent; he'd be utterly reliant on someone else to feed him and wash him and move him around and do everything for him _for the rest of his natural life._ He wouldn't even be able to commit suicide without help.

On second thought, the nightmares were worse. He had nothing else to do but sleep, stuck in the hospital wing, and thanks to them, he couldn't even do that.

Soon - he had no idea how soon; it might have been anywhere from hours to weeks - the world seemed to start unraveling around him. His head reeled ceaselessly, the world blurred around him, words seemed to wander in and out of focus so that he couldn't carry on a conversation, and hours seemed to melt and blend together like wax crayons left in the sun too long. Even breathing started to seem more difficult than it should be, and he kept wanting to cough, except it always felt like getting stabbed in the chest when he did. He tried to perk up some when he recognized his friends' faces in front of him, but it didn't work very well; his clearest memories (and they weren't very) consisted of Roxas asking him if his hearing aid batteries were dead and Axel giving him a very strange look as if he'd just said something completely off-the-wall without realizing it. And Vexen, very clearly saying one memorable word: "Pneumonia."

Pneumonia. Demyx pondered that word, repeating it silently to himself, tasting it and allowing its sounds and tones to wash over him as though he were some sort of word connoisseur. He decided it was a pretty word with a pleasing sound, then tried to conjure up some meaning to go with it. A shame the meaning wasn't as pretty as the word itself - some kind of lung disease. An infection that caused a buildup of fluid in the lungs, that often killed hospitalized patients. Did Vexen mean he had pneumonia? How interesting, if he did. He had gills. Fluid wasn't supposed to get into his lungs; once anything liquid got a certain distance down his windpipe, it got shunted off. But there it was, apparently. How did it get there? Where did it come from? If it built up enough, would it spill out into his gills? It would probably gunk them up horribly, if it was infected stuff, but he was kind of curious now. Vaguely, he realized he was probably delirious, but he didn't much care.

There was a mask of some sort over his mouth and nose now. What was it doing there? When did it get there? The word "pneumonia" drifted lazily across his mind again, along with other words - "damage" and "infection" and "amputation". He struggled to string those together into something meaningful, and decided that Vexen wanted to cut his arms off because they were infected, or maybe before they became infected. Well, fuck _that _with a wooden spoon_._ He didn't want to stick around to get his arms cut off; he needed those arms. He'd rather die of pneumonia first. Come to think of it, he probably would. What was dying like? It would be interesting to find out...

The world had gone silent without him noticing, but Axel and Roxas were still there, hovering over him. Axel looked scared, for some reason, and he seemed to be trying to talk to him, but Demyx couldn't hear what he said or focus clearly enough to read his lips. Roxas didn't seem to be saying anything, but his eyes were shut tight, and Demyx could sense little trails of water running down his face - he was crying. Why was he crying? Demyx wanted to reach up and wipe the tears away, but for some reason, he couldn't move. It hurt so much just to try. He didn't want Roxas to cry, though. "Don't cry, Roxas," he said, surprised that he couldn't hear his own voice. Why was that?

It didn't matter. He could figure that out later. For now, he just closed his eyes and wandered away.

* * *

He found himself in a sunny field, with green grass underfoot and a brilliantly blue sky with appropriately white, fluffy clouds overhead. He had not the faintest idea how he got there, but that didn't matter to him right then as he looked around - the scene was pretty idyllic, though rather boring, and distressingly silent. When he checked, he found his hearing aids were gone, which didn't bother him as much as it should have, for some reason. Right then, he was still trying to get his bearings, because pleasant as his current surroundings were, he didn't really think he wanted to stay there indefinitely.

Looking around, he noticed a couple very key things - in front of him, the green of the grass was occasionally broken up by a colorful flower; he could make out orange lilies, blue irises, golden daffodils, white daisies, and some brilliant red flower he couldn't put a name to. The further in that direction he looked, the more colorful, varied, and numerous the flowers became, and if he went far enough, it would become like walking through a garden. Behind him, however, not only were there no flowers, but the grass became drier and browner, and the clouds darker and more numerous. It didn't take a genius to figure out which way was more pleasant. Demyx set off towards the flowers, suddenly struck by the vague feeling that he was missing something important.

The vague feeling didn't go away, but it never progressed past vague into definite, and as Demyx continued in the direction he chose, he decided to ignore it. He'd never seen such beautiful flowers before - each one seemed to be the ideal of its kind, even if he often had no idea what kind that was, but each possessed some forgivable flaw or other characteristic that set it apart and made it individual enough to be real, and not only real, but lovable. And he did love these flowers. He wouldn't have picked one in his wildest dreams, even if he'd been guaranteed that they'd live and bloom forever even when picked. These flowers belonged here and here alone, and he felt privileged to be allowed to walk among them. He just had to try not to damage one by accident.

As he ventured further and further into the flowers, the grass seemed to disappear entirely as the profusion of blossoms became an endless rainbow carpet. It was like wandering through an endless garden, and Demyx had never felt so completely at peace, even in the silence - it was as though nothing bad could ever happen here. Frightening words like "pneumonia" and "amputation" held no meaning here among the flowers; as long as he remained, he would remain strong and whole and _happy_ forever. As genuinely happy as if he had a heart. On that subject, the flowers didn't care whether he had a beating chunk of muscle in his chest or not. It seemed a stretch to say they could care about anything, but if they did, it was only that he was happy and at peace.

All of a sudden, he heard something from up ahead - the first sound he'd heard since his arrival in the field. The sound of rushing water - a distant waterfall. He sensed the water almost as soon as he heard it, and made for it as quickly as possible without damaging the flowers, growing more and more excited by the minute - his hearing had been miraculously restored, all of a sudden, and - he checked - he now had five fingers on his left hand again. And both arms, still, though he couldn't know whether Vexen had amputated either of them, or either leg. Wincing deeply at the thought, he pushed on towards the waterfall.

The sight of it took his breath away - a magnificent cascade of water pouring over the side of a stone cliff, down into a midnight-blue pool he could sense was deep as an ocean. The pool was a perfect circle, bounded half by the cliff and half by the flowers; the waterfall split the cliff side down the middle, while the flowers spilled over as flag irises and water lilies on their side. Demyx just stood in place for a long time, mesmerized by the sheer beauty of it all. Even if he was imagining the whole thing - which, granted, he might be - he felt honored just to be allowed to imagine he was here.

Then, from over the waterfall's roar...he heard music.

He looked around, but he was the only person he saw - but the music was very real, and it was coming from the direction of the waterfall. He looked closer, and realized that it was spilling over an archway, obscuring whatever was on the other side...but the waters parted for a moment, as if by design, and he saw a brief vision of a land beyond the waterfall so lush and beautiful it made the flowered field he'd come through to get here look like a weedy backlot. Though he was allowed only a small glimpse before the waters closed again, that glimpse set him ablaze with wonder and excitement. Every natural beauty he'd ever seen or imagined was over there, from oceans to mountains, and cities so beautifully designed that they seemed almost to have grown in place...and...and _people_. Here, he was the only person in sight; over there, he could have company, meet people, make new friends, learn new things and teach things in return, but there was enough space that he could be alone when he wanted to. And the music...the most beautiful he'd ever heard, and he knew that when he got there, he'd not only be allowed to join in, but his addition would be invited, welcomed, and enjoyed. No one would care that he was a halfbreed, or a street rat, or a Nobody, and he was no longer deaf, epileptic, or otherwise disabled or even scarred.

_I wish Axel and Roxas could see this..._

For a moment, Demyx wanted to turn back, go and find them and bring them here, but he didn't know his way back to wherever they were. Besides, the land beyond the waterfall was so inviting, especially compared to what he'd left behind...they'd understand if he chose to go on and explore without them...if they knew what this place was like, they'd be happy for him. Comforted by those thoughts, he dove into the pool and started swimming. He was going across the waterfall!

* * *

AN: One person might recognize where the waterfall came from, though it was originally a high wall. Everyone else can just fear for Demyx.


	4. Cloudbreak

"He's dying, Roxas."

Those words chilled Axel to the bone as they were spoken, even though he was the one saying them. Trying to hold back tears - maybe Demyx had only told Roxas not to cry before falling unconscious, but Axel felt like that applied to him too - he reached out and stroked Demyx's hair, a lump in his throat forming when he noticed how pale his friend was, and so hot with fever. Only the fact that he hadn't started to fade convinced him there was any life left in that body. "I...I dunno how much time he has left, but I don't think he'll last the night."

Roxas nodded silently, holding Demyx's hand tightly - his left hand, the one with only three fingers. He looked like he was trying to say something, but couldn't find the words he needed. "I hope...wherever he goes...he'll be happy," he finally said slowly, sounding as though he was having to fight to get every word out without an accompanying sob. "He deserved...a lot more happiness...than he got."

Axel nodded, resisting the urge to wipe his eyes with his hand; that would give away that he was trying not to cry. "He will be," he whispered half to himself, trying to convince himself that this was for the best. "He'll never be in pain anymore...and he'll have all his fingers and be able to hear and everything..."

"Why?!" Roxas burst out suddenly, tears abruptly pouring down his cheeks. "H-he'd been doing so well, until he had that damn seizure, and - and now he...I don't _care_ if it's for the best! I don't _want_ him to die!"

Axel couldn't help but pull the boy closer, letting Roxas cry on his shoulder while he gave up his own battle against tears. "I don't either," he whispered, unable to speak up if he wanted to. "Dammit, I'll miss him so much...it's not fair. It's just not fucking fair." It seemed like only yesterday that Demyx had been recovering beautifully, able to sit up and play board games with them, even if they'd had to move his pieces for him...and now, barely two weeks later, he was _dying_, just because he'd thrown up during a seizure and apparently inhaled some of his own vomit. Vexen said that wasn't uncommon, and that it was why epileptics were supposed to lie down on their side before a seizure if they saw it coming, except Demyx couldn't move. Vexen also said that that often caused a particularly bad form of pneumonia, and since Demyx had been so weak already...

_No. I can't just let him go. I can't._

Roxas still seemed totally occupied with his own misery. Axel took the opportunity to reach down and start fiddling with his insulin pump, giving himself a dose large enough to handle a full and very sugar-heavy meal when he already had high blood sugar. That was about the highest dose he could get at once, and if he didn't eat said full and sugar-heavy meal within about 20 minutes, it could very well kill him. Possibly faster than that, considering he didn't know where his blood sugar had started. He didn't really want to die, and was kind of counting on Roxas to take appropriate measures to stop him from doing so, but he was perfectly prepared to risk it - the stakes were high enough to make it worth betting his life. Wherever the brink of death was, he wanted to get there before Demyx crossed it, without crossing it himself, and hopefully bring him back somehow, if it was at all possible. The fastest way for him to do that was OD on insulin.

He had about fifteen minutes now before he went into insulin shock. Enough of a buffer that he could take his sweet time about telling Roxas what he'd just done. He had to eventually, or he might find himself stuck on the wrong side of the brink of death with Demyx, but if he spoke up too soon, Roxas would run and find Vexen and Vexen would force IV glucose into him until his blood sugar settled and he would have wasted his efforts. Assuming he wasn't wasting his efforts right now, and accomplishing anything but nearly killing himself and never getting in a position to help Demyx. The relentlessly stupid audacity of his plan suddenly struck him, and he laughed out loud, finally able to do so now that he had something like hope.

All right. Maybe five minutes, not fifteen.

Roxas was staring at him like he'd just grown another head, with horns and a pointed beard. "Axel...what in Kingdom Hearts's name is wrong with you?" he asked slowly, in a voice that suggested he'd strangle Axel if he didn't like the answer.

It would take a bigger idiot than Axel not to recognize the threat in that voice, but Axel was already feeling dizzy and lightheaded and too messed-up to care. "Oh...nothing," he said lightly, already feeling himself sliding out of his chair. "Jus'...loss an' loss'a ins'lin...gonna go find Demy. I mish'm..." By the time he hit the floor, he could already feel himself drifting away.

* * *

_Lots and lots of insulin. I'm going to go find Demyx. I miss him._

By the time Roxas managed to puzzle out Axel's slurred, cryptic words, the redhead was already lying on the floor in a crumpled heap. Pure shock kept him pinned to his seat for several moments afterward, trying to process what was going on - while one of his brothers was dying of pneumonia, the other had committed suicide by diabetic shock right in front of him. Suicide. Right in front of him.

"Axel...how could you? How could you be that stupid?" he whispered, sliding out of his own chair and grabbing the unconscious redhead by the collar. "Do you think Demyx would be proud of you or happy to see you? He'll be so crushed..." Demyx's own suicidal tendencies notwithstanding - not to mention far in the past; he hadn't made a serious attempt in his right mind since losing his hearing, and any idiot could see why he'd tried then - he was not only modest but had a great respect for (other) human life; he would _not_ be pleased to find out that his death had driven Axel to suicide. Roxas knew him well enough to know that he'd be horribly crushed that Axel had done such a thing...and horribly disappointed that Roxas hadn't stopped him. But what could he have done? Axel must have given himself a lethal dose from his pump while he was looking the other way, and he'd had no way to know until he was already collapsing...

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He knew how to deal with insulin shock. Just give Axel sugar until he came around. It was probably too dangerous to give him hard candy or anything liquid, but Axel always carried a glucagon pen in his pocket, just in case of an emergency like this. Roxas quickly turned out every one of the redhead's pockets until he found it, blessing whatever god might be looking after them that Axel hadn't thought to get rid of it first, quickly read the instructions on the side, pulled Axel's pants down (an awkward job with one hand) without giving a rat's ass about either of their dignities, and jabbed it into his thigh until he heard the injector click. There - that probably wouldn't save his life all by itself, but it would probably buy enough time to summon more substantial help. Dropping the used glucagon pen on the floor - he didn't have time to find the Sharps bucket and dispose of it properly - he tore off to the main entrance room of the hospital wing, found it empty, and slammed his hand down on the buzzer.

It seemed to take forever and a half for Vexen to arrive, and when he did, he did not look happy - Roxas wondered briefly what experiment in progress he'd interrupted. However, for possibly the first time Roxas knew of, Vexen didn't appear to resent his mere existence over the summons. "Is it Nine?" he asked immediately, his expression and tone grave.

Roxas shook his head. "Axel tried to kill himself," he explained, speaking at a rapid-fire pace. "He gave himself a huge dose of insulin and passed out. I used a glucagon pen on him. He's in Demyx's room."

While he paused and tried to remember any other major details he might have forgotten, Vexen stared at him as if he was seriously considering just letting Axel die. A moment later, he reached under the front desk and pressed another buzzer that wasn't visible from where Roxas was standing, waited until Fori and Zexion showed up (both of whom looked even less pleased than he had), and physically dragged them both to Demyx's room without saying a word or explaining what was going on - Roxas could hear them both complaining about that all the way down the hall. He hadn't known Zexion knew so many eloquent insults. Roxas just waited in the front room, frozen with worry again now that the situation was out of his hands, until he caught a glimpse of Axel being wheeled down the hall on a gurney towards a different room, an IV running into his arm already. It had to be glucose.

That was it, then. Everything that could be done for Axel was being done - while glucose was being run into him, Fori would probably be set to work removing the excess insulin from his system. Now it was just a waiting game. Trying not to shake with nerves, Roxas made his way back to Demyx's room, trying to stay out of everyone else's way, and was relieved to find Demyx was still there. "You'll never believe what that idiot just did," he whispered, sliding back into his seat and taking Demyx's hand again - he knew Demyx couldn't hear him, but he needed to talk to someone. "He tried to OD on insulin, just so he could find you. I gave him glucagon and called Vexen on him as soon as I could - I hope he'll be okay now. Not that I don't understand where he's coming from, but I know you'd be horribly crushed if he died too...you're not the sort of person who'd want that. If you were, you wouldn't be you. Besides, if I lost both of you...Demyx, I'm going to miss you so much...Demyx...p-please don't go..."

Roxas couldn't hold back any more. He buried his face in his good hand and cried, for what seemed like hours on end, until his throat was completely raw and his nose was too clogged to breathe through and his eyes burned so much he thought they might just shrivel up and fall out. First Demyx...and now Axel had to go and be so _stupid_...even if he did recover, by the time he came back around, Demyx would be gone...Axel would never see Demyx again and it was his own fault...and when the end came, Roxas would be the only one here at Demyx's side...it should have been both of them...Demyx deserved at least that much...he deserved a better end than this, choking away the last hours of his life like this...he deserved to live...how could Axel be so stupid?!

* * *

The pool between the flowers and the waterfall had turned out to be much larger to swim across than to look at, and it had been one of the most challenging swims Demyx had undertaken in a long time. Now he was panting for oxygen and literally shaking with exhaustion, but still grinning with elation - he'd made it. He was across the pool, draped across the rocks on the far side for a rest, and the waterfall and the paradise beyond were no more than ten feet away. Energized by that thought, he pulled himself to his feet again and took one step -

"Demyx! Get back here, you dipshit! Don't take one more step..."

What the hell?

"Demyx Kumar Ghatori...I swear...if you take one step through that waterfall...I will come after you...and hunt you down..."

Demyx turned around slowly and stared incredulously at the redhead who was just stumbling up to the other end of the pool, panting and staggering as if he'd run all the way through the flowers. "Axel..." he asked very slowly. "What the _hell_ are you doing here? How the hell did you even get here?"

Axel stood up as straight as he could and shrugged before doubling over from exhaustion again. "Hunting your ass down...you idiot. As for how...ODed on insulin. Probably scared...the shit outta Roxas. Hope he could...still think clear enough...to call Vexen on me. I didn't..._really_ wanna die."

"_What?!"_ Demyx just shook his head in dismay, but at the same time, he was finally seeing the world he was in as it was - the waterfall was no mere waterfall over an arch; the waterfall and the arch were the gateway to the next life. And the direction he hadn't gone - where the grass became drier and browner - must have been the route back to his old life, with all its miseries and indignities. With a sigh, he turned back to Axel. "I'm sorry," he said softly, not sure if Axel could hear him across the pool. "You shouldn't have done that...it's time for me to go." Even as he spoke, sharp pains lanced through his chest, where his heart should be - thoughts of the friends he was leaving behind and the good times they'd never have again - but he knew this was for the best. His life wouldn't be worth living without his arms, and if he did survive, he'd be nothing but a burden forever. Besides, he'd see them again - they'd come here in their own time, and they'd find each other again.

"_No!_" Axel howled, before he could take one step towards the waterfall. "Demyx, don't you dare!" Demyx shook his head and continued towards the waterfall, confident that Axel couldn't follow him, but he hadn't made it more than two steps before he heard a loud splash behind him. He whirled around to discover that Axel really was going to try to swim across the pool after him.

He just stared for several long moments, watching the struggling redhead with a sense of helplessness. "Axel, stop! Go back! You can't swim!" he screamed desperately, but Axel just shook his head and kept going. "I thought you said you didn't really want to die!" Axel ignored that too. Granted, by now he may have just been too busy trying to keep his head above water - and he wasn't doing very well at that. As Demyx watched, he disappeared beneath the surface, reappeared to advance a few more strokes, and disappeared again. "Dammit, you idiot..." Cursing under his breath, Demyx dove back into the pool, trying to save Axel from himself.

If he'd thought the pool was big when he was trying to cross it the first time, now that he was scanning the depths for one person, it was huge. He pulled his head out of the water for a moment, just in time to see Axel's head emerge from the water again, but he sank again barely a second later, straight down. With a howl, Demyx struck out for where he'd last seen him, urgency lending him speed and driving exhaustion away. By the time he got there, Axel had already sunk fifteen feet and was no longer even trying to swim, his face slack and his eyes half-open as though he'd given up. But his eyes moved to focus on Demyx as he approached, and that was enough impetus for Demyx to dive down, grab him around the waist, and drag him back to the surface. While Axel choked, retched, and gasped for air, Demyx continued to stroke for the nearest shore - the flowered shore. "Th-thank you," Axel choked as Demyx set him down on the shore. "Have you -" He coughed up half a pint of water. "Changed your mind yet?"

Demyx shook his head slowly, wishing he didn't have to crush Axel's hopes again. "I'm sorry, Axel," he whispered. "I can't go back. Vexen was going to amputate my arms - he probably has by now. What the hell kind of life could I have like that?"

Axel stared at him as if he'd just grown a third arm. "What?" he asked incredulously, coughing up more water. "Demyx, I dunno what you're talking about or where you got that idea - last I knew, your arms were still attached and Vexen was planning to leave 'em there. I dunno how you got the idea that they weren't or he wasn't. He didn't even think there'd be permanent damage."

Demyx's head was suddenly whirling - so much of what had driven him here was turning out to be just not true. And if he'd made it to the waterfall... "I...I thought he said there _was_ permanent damage," he said weakly. "I heard you two talking...outside the door..."

Axel gave him a light cuff over the head. "You're deaf, you twit," he said, smiling for the first time. "Of course you didn't hear every word right. He told me that even though there was _severe_ damage, it probably wasn't _permanent_. Now come on - you have a life to get back to."

Demyx nodded, feeling a little dizzy. "Yeah..." he murmured. "I...I guess you're right. We...we better go back before Roxas freaks out any more." Helping Axel to his feet, he turned his back on the waterfall and set off, back towards the grasslands. Just like he remembered, the further he went, the less numerous the flowers became, until they were replaced entirely with increasingly dead grass. But the clouds didn't become darker and greyer; the sky started to brighten, brighter than it had been over the pool - and at the point where he left Axel behind and started running, everything around him became bright white...

He was in a hospital room, or so he guessed, and everything was silent. When he could focus his eyes well enough to make out shapes, he could see Roxas bending over him, saying something; he couldn't puzzle out what yet, nor could he find words to answer. But the look on his face was enough to tell him he'd made the right choice, in his already-fading dream.

* * *

AN: Silly Demyx and his misunderstanding and bad ears. Silly damn Axel too. Good thing his stupid plan actually worked, or Roxas would send him right back to the waterfall.


	5. Clearing

"You are the _luckiest_ _god_damn son of a _bitch_ ever, I hope you know."

Axel blinked incredulously, trying to focus his eyes on the speaker - the voice sounded like Roxas, but Roxas almost never used that kind of language. "What the fuck?" he croaked, trying to reach up and rub his eyes only to find there was an IV tube in his arm. "What the fuck happened?"

"You tried to _kill_ yourself, is what happened!" The speaker, who was sounding and looking more like Roxas now, grabbed him tightly and gave him a rib-cracking hug, one arm feeling like a thick club - or like it had a cast on it. That did match up with Roxas-as-last-seen. "Right in front of me, too, you idiot! I guess that was kind of a good thing, since I could call Vexen on you right away, but still...Kingdom Hearts, Ax, imagine how crushed Demyx would have been..."

"Demyx...?" Axel tried to recall where he came into the picture - last he remembered, the fragile musician was fighting for his life against pneumonia and losing in a hurry. The shock of that realization got the rest of his brain in line quickly. "Oh, God...Roxas...is he...?" His blood ran cold as he realized that, given the kind of shape Demyx was in when last seen, he probably was.

"Demyx is Demyx, you idiot," Roxas said, in a tone that suggested he couldn't believe Axel was that thick, though his giddy expression gave the lie to his exasperated tone. "Whatever gods he has looking out for him must really like him - as is becoming increasingly usual for him, he pulled off a last-second miracle turnaround and is now _improving_, though I'm sure he's not out of the woods yet. And there you are, trying to kill yourself so you could join him, and he didn't die after all. Though if you'd succeeded, that might have finished him off."

"...Huh?" Axel had to think for a while to figure out what Roxas might be talking about. For some reason, the news of Demyx's miracle recovery didn't surprise him nearly as much as it probably should have, even considering Demyx seemed to attract such miracles more often than most, but he didn't remember a thing about trying to kill himself. He had the feeling that something vitally important had happened while he was out, that he'd had a major hand in and really should remember for some reason, but he had not the slightest clue what it might be or why he should remember it - he'd been out cold at the time, after all. "The hell are you talking about?" he croaked, pretty sure Roxas didn't know whatever vitally important thing he couldn't remember. He would no doubt remember his supposed suicide attempt, though.

"I'm talking about when you gave yourself a huge dose of insulin, with the stated intention of finding Demyx," Roxas explained in an are-you-really-that-thick tone. "Fori said your blood sugar was only barely in the double digits by the time he got there, maybe a tenth what it should be, and that wasn't more than five minutes after you passed out - and I'd already given you a shot of glucagon before then. You're lucky you didn't cause permanent brain damage, though I'm not sure how anyone could tell."

"Oh..." Axel was more than a little concerned that he couldn't remember ever making such a decision, let alone why - Demyx's apparently imminent death wouldn't have been enough. Granted, it would certainly cause enough despair and depression, especially if he'd actually died, but Axel knew Demyx well enough to know that he'd be horrified by such an action. Unfortunately, Roxas surely didn't know his reasoning, so couldn't explain it to him. "I...don't remember doing that, or why I did it, but...I'm just gonna take your word for it that it happened..."

"I don't care whether you believe me or not. I just don't want you to try again. For a while there, I thought I was going to lose both of you..." Roxas sighed and hugged Axel again, even tighter; his cast bit painfully into Axel's back, but Axel didn't comment. "I've never been so scared in my life," he murmured, sounding like a frightened little boy; Axel couldn't help but hug him right back, trying to reassure him. "At least it all worked out okay-ish," Roxas said once he got control of himself. "Not ten minutes after Demyx woke up, Vexen came in to tell me you were finally stable and would probably come around soon - I think he was even more surprised than I was to see Demyx was awake."

Axel nodded slowly, feeling like he'd missed a lot in not very much time. "How's Demyx doing?" he croaked, finally daring to ask now that he knew he'd get a positive answer.

"Well, he hasn't started talking again yet, but he's awake and aware," Roxas said, brightening slightly - and literally. Axel had never seen him do that before. "And I think his hearing aid batteries are dead, but he seems mostly able to focus well enough to read lips. When I told him what stunt you pulled, he did not look happy."

"Well, you can go back and tell him I haven't managed to off myself yet," Axel said wryly, looking Roxas up and down. "And...I don't know if you know this, but...you're glowing. Like, seriously...glowing."

"Huh?" Roxas looked down at himself in surprise. "Would you look at that. Beats me why that is." He closed his eyes for a moment and stopped glowing. "That was interesting."

"You're overwrought," Axel said authoritatively. "Your day's probably been too exciting for your own good. Go tell Demyx I'm still alive, and then go take a nap or something. That's what I'm going to do."

* * *

"I can't believe Vexen won't let you out of the hospital wing."

"I suppose it kind of makes sense from his point of view," Demyx replied lazily as he watched the movie playing on Roxas's PS3 - _The Return of the King_, extended edition. Since it wasn't going to be good for much else until Roxas's arm healed, it had been moved into Demyx's hospital room temporarily, to serve as a DVD player. It gave them something to do while Axel was out on missions, since the redhead didn't seem all that interested in watching it. His loss, Roxas thought. "I mean, if I had another bad seizure - not saying I think I will, but just in case - the safest place for me to be is already in the hospital wing. Or just in case the pneumonia comes back or some other infection develops."

Roxas thought about that for a while, and eventually decided it did make a certain amount of sense. "Don't you miss your room, though?" he asked, more for the sake of argument than anything else.

"Of course I do," Demyx answered promptly. "But I understand why Vexen wants me to be here and not there, and I'm not going to put up a huge fight about it." He sighed, and his eyes became unfocused for a moment. "You're taking good care of Connie, right?" he asked when that moment was over.

Roxas nodded. "As often as she'll let me; she's more likely to get into a boxing match with her brush than actually let me brush her. And she's developed a thing for laundry. She insists on hiding in your dirty laundry basket. Probably because all the clothes smell like you."

Demyx chuckled softly at that. "Poor thing. It's a shame Vexen would throw an absolute shitfit if you somehow smuggled her in here, otherwise I'd suggest you do so. I miss her too. I miss being woken up in the morning by something eating my hair."

Roxas laughed out loud, rubbing his own hair. "She still hasn't given up her hair fetish?"

"No, but she's still better than Sol. Axel tells me that when Sol thinks it's time to wake up, he goes and stands on his chest and stares at him..." Demyx gave Roxas an unsettling, bug-eyed stare to demonstrate. "And just keeps staring until Axel is so creeped out he has to wake up."

Roxas laughed even louder at that, then the two of them went back to watching their movie. After a few minutes, Roxas noticed that Demyx's eyes had that strange, unfocused look to them again. "Demyx, are you okay?" he asked, concerned.

Demyx blinked, as if surprised, and shook his head like he was trying to clear it; when he stopped shaking it, his eyes looked focused again. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's nothing," he answered. "Or, well...I think it's nothing." His eyes started to lose focus again. "I'm just remembering a dream, or I think it was a dream, that I had while I was sick...I remember a field full of flowers, beautiful flowers, and at the end of the field was a deep pool with a waterfall on the opposite side...the waterfall ran over an arch, and the arch was an open gateway to the most beautiful world I'd ever seen..." He sighed and closed his eyes, as if reminiscing. "I wanted to go see that world, so I swam across the pool, but before I got through the waterfall, Axel showed up out of nowhere and told me not to go. I still wanted to, but when I got too close for his comfort, he jumped in and tried to swim after me. Since he can't swim for shit, I had to go save his ass...and when I dragged him back to shore, it was the opposite shore from the gateway, so I just gave up on going through it."

Roxas listened silently to his account. "Well, as far as dreams go, I'd say that gets an average score on the surreal meter," he commented when it was over.

Demyx nodded silently. "I can normally remember my dreams really well, but that one is vague - I only remember bits and pieces," he finally said with a regretful tone. "Maybe it was because of the fever. I can't help but think that there's something really important about it that I'm missing...but maybe not. Maybe I'm just ticked that I can't remember it, or that I didn't get to go see that world."

Roxas nodded understandingly. "Like one of those dreams where you get invited to this great party, or you're at this great restaurant, and there's all this wonderful food around you, and you head for the buffet or place your order, and through whatever series of unlikely circumstances, you never actually get to eat a bite? And when you wake up, you just want to go back to sleep so you can have that dream again and maybe eat something next time?"

Demyx nodded, but didn't laugh as Roxas might have expected. "Yes...except I don't really want to go back there and try again," he murmured. "I...I think it might have been a good thing I didn't get to go to that world. That's part of what I think I'm missing, though - I don't know why it would be. I just have the feeling that it is. It's annoying."

Roxas sighed, trying to find a way to steer the conversation into less weird paths. "I can see why it would be...but if you can focus on the here-and-now for a while, you get to see Merry and Pippin dancing on a table."

Demyx gave him a very strange look. "Now why the hell would I want to see that?"

"Because as far as fictional characters go, Pippin in the movies is about the best match I've seen for Axel's intelligence. It's scary. And there's more good examples coming up."

Demyx did laugh out loud at that one. "Oh, yeah, now that is scary. Especially since, if they're holding as more-or-less true to the books as they seem to be, he won't manage to kill himself through his own stupidity." There was silence for a moment. "Incidentally, how long until you get that cast off?"

"Next week, I hope. Now shush; this is funny."

* * *

"Do you feel any grinding or clicking sensations anywhere in your arms as you move them, especially along the length of the long bones?"

Demyx barely paid attention to Vexen's question as he stretched and moved his arms around, he was so glad to just be able to move them freely again. "No," he answered finally, once he remembered the question. "Joint soreness and stiffness, sure, I have a ton of that, and these pressure garments aren't helping my range of motion, but no grinding or clicking."

"Excellent," Vexen said, though he seemed no more enthused than usual. "The soreness and stiffness are to be expected from such long disuse. The lack of other sensations only means that the bones have set and healed well, and should cause you no lingering problems."

"Whee," Demyx cheered jokingly. "I have arms again." He looked down at the sleeves of the pressure vest Vexen was going to make him wear for a very long time to come, probably right up until he was fit to go back on duty again - back on duty; he'd never looked forward to it so much any other time he'd been injured, mostly because he hadn't been certain that it would ever happen this time, at least until now. The tight, restrictive pressure garments were designed to keep swelling down and scarring to a minimum; considering how bad the initial injuries were, and how few favors that seizure must have done him, he was sure they wouldn't eliminate scarring, but he didn't want to think how bad the scars might be without them. His legs were still braced and bandaged, as the bones hadn't fully healed yet, but he was a hundred percent sure that Vexen had a few pairs of pressure leggings ready and waiting for him somewhere. "So...about my chances of getting out of the hospital wing any time soon..." He didn't hold out any great hope for that, considering how long Vexen had kept him in here so far, but his arms healing enough to lose the braces was a milestone, and if it wasn't now, it probably wouldn't be until his legs were healed as well.

"Patience, Nine," Vexen said impatiently, the irony of which wasn't lost on Demyx but would have been on Vexen himself. With practiced ease - though Demyx didn't know who the hell he could have practiced on - he pulled up the bottom of the pressure vest, far enough to expose where Demyx's feeding tube connected to his body. Demyx held his breath as Vexen carefully disconnected it and bandaged over the hole in his side where it had been - he was so glad to be rid of the damn thing. He didn't know how he was going to eat now, if he'd be staying in the hospital wing, but presumably, with his arms free, he'd be able to feed himself now. And it would be such an immense relief and joy to eat solid food again! Or even just to drink something - just to have something in his mouth that tasted like something! The closest he'd come to actually eating anything since being rescued from Malenisa's torture chamber was throwing up after Vexen tried him on a nasal feeding tube, and that really didn't count...and even though the caloric and nutritional equivalent of a full, balanced meal had been pumped into his stomach three times a day for three months, the mere thought of being allowed to taste real food again had him ravenous. And - was it just his imagination or the slimming effect of the pressure garments, or had he lost a _lot_ of weight during those three months? "I would not recommend that you start eating solid food again immediately; it might not sit well," Vexen was saying, and Demyx had to refocus his attention on him. "A calorie-dense liquid or semiliquid diet would be preferable, for the first week or so. And be careful not to overfill your stomach. The consequences of overeating could be...unpleasant."

Well, Demyx could see the sense of that, since he had an open hole in his side that led straight into his stomach. But he was more excited by the implications - Vexen was talking like he'd be choosing his own diet. And that kind of choice meant freedom. "So...um...about getting out of here?" he asked, not caring if Vexen bit his head off again.

Vexen simply ignored him for several more minutes, instead taking his temperature, listening to his breathing, and looking over several X-rays of his arms and chest. Demyx could have told him his lungs were perfectly clear and had been for two weeks - he could tell easily that there was no fluid where it didn't belong, now that he was clearheaded enough to focus his powers - but he suspected Vexen would go selectively deaf if he did. Finally he disappeared into another room, and Demyx was just beginning to wonder what the hell he was doing now when he returned with what looked like a wheelchair. A wheelchair - Demyx would never look at wheelchairs as symbolic of restriction and disability again. After being bedridden for so long, that wheelchair looked to him like the image of freedom itself. "The chair is controlled by a joystick on the armrest," Vexen explained without preamble. "The steering is intuitive enough; I trust you will be able to learn how to operate it without too much instruction." Anyone else would have said that with dry humor, but if Vexen had ever had a sense of humor, dry or otherwise, it was kept in cold storage.

Demyx didn't care about Vexen's sense of humor or lack thereof. He was all but quivering with enthusiasm as Vexen helped him out of bed and into the wheelchair, and once he had the joystick controls down pat, he couldn't help but spin around in circles just for the hell of it. "This is awesome," he declared authoritatively. "Thank you."

It almost seemed like Vexen was smiling for a moment, but Demyx dismissed it as a trick of the light. "You are free to go, Nine," the academic said. "I want to see you at least once a day for physical therapy until further notice."

Demyx didn't need to be told twice. As soon as Vexen was done talking, he rolled through a portal and into the hallway, enjoying his first sight of anything outside his room or a hospital room in three months. Then, just because he hadn't really used his powers in three months either, he made a softball-sized water bubble in his hand, tossing it into the air and watching it fall, until it returned to eye level and he popped it. The droplets seemed to form a flower shape for an instant, and he was reminded once more of his haunting dream and the field of flowers he'd traveled to reach the waterfall...

He shook his head slightly, but smiled. All right; going to surprise Axel and Roxas could wait for a bit. First of all, he absolutely had to go see his garden.

* * *

AN: Greetings from Chicago. I'm glad I uploaded this ahead of time so I could still publish it on time.


	6. Daylight

"Come on, Ax. Why won't you play with me? Are you still pissed that I didn't come see you as soon as I got out of the hospital wing again? I told you, I just had to go see my garden, and I ran into Lexaeus by accident while I was there..."

"It's not that," Axel protested, raising his hands in the air and shrugging helplessly. "I just hate chess. I'd rather watch you two play than get involved myself."

Demyx gave Axel a mock-pleading look, then shrugged and made his move. "Suit yourself, I guess. And check...mate."

Roxas stared at the board with blank horror, especially at the other black rook that seemed to have just popped up from nowhere to help Demyx's queen pin his king in a corner. "Where did _that_ come from? I could swear blind I took out both your rooks..."

"Weren't you paying attention when I promoted that pawn about ten moves back? I moved it out of the way as soon as I could, and by then, my queen and your king were already in a tailchase, so I just held it back until you were where I wanted you," Demyx explained, grinning.

"If I'd still had my queen in play, it would have been a whole 'nother story," Roxas groused, glaring at the rook.

"Serves you right for getting too cocky about wiping out my pawns. That one I promoted was about the last one I had."

"It's bad enough playing Monopoly with you two," Axel said, shaking his head. "I barely know how to play chess. Either of you would eat me alive."

"Try playing Zexion sometime," Demyx said as he cleared the board. "He makes Roxas and I look like a pair of preschoolers farting around with a chess set. Of course, that's your best hope of beating him. Sometimes he forgets you're not as smart as he is, and expects you to make some clever move that never even occurs to you, and whatever dumbass move you make instead surprises the hell out of him and throws off his whole game."

"I'll keep that in mind," Axel said, rolling his eyes. "If I'm ever dumb enough to challenge Zexion to chess, I should be plenty dumb enough to kick his ass across the board. If you two are going to keep at each other's throats indefinitely, I'm gonna beat it for a bit. See you two later." He disappeared through a portal with a wave, without waiting for a response.

Demyx glanced back at Roxas and shrugged, not quite sure what to make of Axel's sudden departure. "Well, since Xaldin hasn't collected me to peel anything yet, we probably have time for another game before dinner - up for it?"

Roxas shook his head emphatically. "I think I've had enough chess for a while. We're at, what, three games to two now? I'll quit while you're only one game ahead. Give the board a rest for a bit." He leaned back in his chair pensively as Demyx shrugged and put the pieces away, then rolled over to the shelf to put the board away. "You know..." he said finally. "It's been an age since my last sitar lesson. I must be terrifyingly out of practice."

Demyx stopped so suddenly he nearly tipped out of his wheelchair. It had been so, so long since he'd last summoned his sitar, for any reason, and to do so again...how could he bear to? How could he bear not to? He couldn't bear the thought of never touching it again, but he couldn't bear the thought of summoning it only to find out he'd lost something far more precious than a couple fingers, or even his arms...that special part of him that kept the music flowing, what he considered the remains of his heart...the mere thought of such a devastating loss terrified him to the point of paralysis...

It couldn't hurt. All he had to do was summon it and hand it over to Roxas, and let Roxas do the playing. Steeling himself, he reached out and called his sitar to his hand, tensing himself involuntarily as he felt the lacquered wood in his hands once more, unable to resist holding it for a moment, gazing at the brilliant blue instrument like a long-lost lover...he wouldn't be able to sit to play properly for another month or more, but he could shift it and himself into something like position, pulling the chain with his mezrabs on it from around his neck and carefully removing the picks, sliding them onto his fingers...as the first two fingers on his left hand found their positions along the neck of the sitar, the little stubs that were all that remained of his other fingers folded down in remembrance of how they should have curled out of the way... He drew a deep, ragged breath as memories flooded his mind - the raw hell he'd been through, the agony, the misery, the despair, the flowering field and the waterfall, the escape he very nearly had, the realization that continuing to live would mean more pain to come, but also joy enough to make the pain worth it...

And he played.

He played without even meaning to, spilling out everything he desperately needed to say but could put no words to, until it felt like he'd played something clear out of himself and he was left with a giant hole deep inside where it had been - but it had been something he didn't need in him anyway, and now that it was gone, the hole it had left could now fill in with better things, and all his pain and misery and doubts about whether he should even be alive could be replaced with hope and peace and a determination to not only survive, but live. That would take time, however, and for now, he let the sitar slip from his fingers, feeling exhausted and oddly hollow but somehow relieved.

As he blinked and looked around, he realized Roxas and Axel were standing right next to him, looking at him with deep, wide-eyed concern; Axel was still holding a bag from Demyx's favorite Indian takeout restaurant. Demyx was a little too overwhelmed by the song he'd just played to react for several moments, but eventually, he looked up at them and managed a weak smile. As if on cue, they both grabbed him and hugged him tightly, grinning for reasons he couldn't identify immediately; he couldn't help but grin back. "There's our Demyx," Axel murmured. "I wondered where he'd been."


	7. Breeze

"Demyx...you know, you seem awfully thin..."

How, exactly, Roxas could tell was a bit of a mystery at that moment, since Demyx was enwrapped in a voluminous bathrobe that concealed everything but his head, hands, and feet, and he was wearing socks. But maybe that was it - the bathrobe was too voluminous, and enveloped him too completely. Maybe his hands were just too bony, and his face too thin. In fact, on closer examination, they definitely were. Had he lost that much weight while in the hospital wing? Or had he lost it over the course of his entire recovery, and he just hadn't noticed until now? If so, he wondered how; Demyx looked almost as thin as Axel now, and not nearly as healthy. Demyx didn't seem particularly disturbed by Roxas's statement, however; he just gave a weak chuckle and continued to dangle that little paper wad on a string down over the side of the bed for Connie to play with. "I'd be rather surprised if I didn't," he said. "Remember that time when I got so sick I had to be moved out of the castle for a month? I hadn't eaten for two weeks before that, and didn't eat a hell of a lot for that month, just because I was so sick...I lost maybe forty pounds from that, and I hadn't gained more than twenty, maybe twenty-five back before...before that whole thing with Axel trying to give up drinking," he explained hesitantly, biting his lip as he came to some painful memories. "That wasn't exactly conducive to gaining any weight, so I was still fifteen or twenty pounds down prior to...all this. And since then, I lost twenty, thirty _more_ pounds on the feeding tube. And while I know I've gained at least fifteen back since Vexen let me eat solid food again, I'm still pretty underweight, I imagine."

Roxas tried to do the math on that, and decided that Demyx could be anywhere from twenty to thirty-five pounds underweight - though the higher number would have had him at fifty pounds underweight at some point, while he was still under medical supervision, and if he'd been that thin, Vexen would no doubt have taken action. But still. Demyx hadn't been all that big to begin with - why hadn't he noticed how thin Demyx was before? Probably only because it had gotten lost with how bad he'd looked overall... Not knowing what else to say on the subject, he dropped it and watched Connie play with her paper wad on a string. That was entertaining to a point, but only to a point. Soon enough, Roxas started looking for an excuse to break the silence; when Connie pounced hard enough on the paper wad to yank the string out of Demyx's hand, he looked meaningfully at the clock and said "It's just about lunchtime; feel up to shifting into your chair and going down to the kitchen or should I bring you something?"

Demyx gave him a curious look as Connie carried her paper wad triumphantly across the floor. "What about you? I thought you were sick."

Roxas had to think for a moment about what he might be talking about, then flushed - that was something other than his proudest moment. "Um...I'm not actually sick, per se, I was just sick to my stomach this morning, and...Axel made a bigger deal out of it than it actually was, I guess."

Now Demyx was eyeing him with concern and suspicion. "Well, if you were sick to your stomach, he couldn't have blown it far out of proportion without dragging you to the hospital wing. So tell me, what did he blow out of proportion and how serious was it really?"

Roxas frowned, unwilling to tell the whole truth but not having any way around it short of leaving the room. He couldn't selectively edit his way around the truth with Demyx much more easily than he could with Axel. If anything, Demyx was harder to selectively edit around, because when he figured out you were doing it, he wasn't so blunt about it you could act offended and pretend you had an excuse to shut up completely. "I had a nightmare, all right?" he said shortly. "That's all. I tried to tell Axel, but he wouldn't listen."

That answer clearly wasn't enough to satisfy. "A nightmare - about what?" Demyx asked seriously. "It must have been a hell of a nightmare to make you hurl."

Roxas shook his head, gritting his teeth involuntarily - he'd managed not to tell Axel about it, and he wanted to tell Demyx even less. "I'll tell you once I get back with some lunch," he said, standing up to go. He had no real intention of doing so - he meant to come back with lunch and start off on an entirely different topic of conversation, and hope Demyx either forgot about his nightmare or couldn't bring himself to interrupt the new topic, or found it too interesting to abandon. Sitar lessons would probably work. He could come back with food and start talking about sitar lessons, and Demyx would forget they'd been talking about anything else.

Alas, it was not to be. "Lunch can wait a few minutes," Demyx said, trying to sit up and cringing in pain - some days he could move more easily than others, and this was not one of those days. Physical therapy or no physical therapy, long disuse hadn't done his muscles or joints any more favors than his original injuries had. "And whatever new topic of conversation you try to bring up when you get back, I'd keep coming back to this one anyway, at least until I get some answers. Don't look at me like that. You've used that tactic once too often."

Roxas scowled down at his feet, but it was hard to refuse Demyx when he was in pain. As close as they'd come to losing him, it was sometimes tempting to just start catering to his every whim to make up for it. He didn't want to say a word anyway, but it came out without his consent - "Malenisa."

Demyx seemed to turn a shade paler at the sound of that name, but to his credit, maintained his composure. "What about Malenisa?" he asked in a mild tone that nonetheless brooked no refusal.

There were many excuses Roxas could give to get out of having to tell Demyx the specifics, none of which seemed adequate. He didn't think Demyx should hear it. It really wasn't that big a deal. Demyx really didn't need any more stress or worries in his life. He didn't want to give Demyx nightmares. He just plain didn't want to tell anyone. "Do you...still have nightmares about her?" he asked, if only to postpone the inevitable.

"Yes," Demyx said without a moment of hesitation, though his face did become a little paler. "All the time. In fact, while I was in the hospital wing the first time, I never actually slept - I wasn't allowed to. I woke up sick with horror so often Vexen was afraid I'd hurt myself in my sleep. Instead, he just gave me knockout drugs whenever I needed rest." He looked calm as he said it, but the calm seemed somewhat forced. "So...trust me, you don't have to worry about my feelings too much."

Roxas sighed and swallowed hard before continuing with his explanation, trying to work out how to phrase this without being too blunt or going into details he'd rather just forget ever happened. "Well...we were...back in the torture chamber." Demyx paled even further, but didn't flinch; he didn't lack for courage. "And...it was at the point where - where the spell had really taken hold, I - I guess, and...so...I was...well, you know..." Roxas's reluctance to just come out and say certain things was hampering his ability to explain, but just thinking about the dream made him feel sick again, let alone thinking about the reality. "And...when she should have stopped, in reality...when she just...gave up and cut and run..." And stabbed Demyx in the chest in an attempt to finish him off quickly, not realizing he had no heart, but Roxas did not want to think about that. His dream, if anything, was worse. "Instead...she...she untied me and...gave me her knife. And said I could...do anything I wanted to you. As long as I didn't kill you too quickly..." Roxas broke off, feeling like he was going to be sick again. Just having to watch what Malenisa had done to Demyx all over again was bad enough, but...what he'd done on top of it, once he had the knife in his hands...he had to forcefully remind himself it was just a dream in order to look Demyx in the face. Even then, he couldn't hold his gaze for long.

Demyx said nothing, just held out his arms to Roxas. Roxas all but collapsed onto him, suddenly unable to fight back tears as Demyx just hugged him tightly and let him cry on his shoulder. "It's all right," Demyx whispered, when Roxas started to run out of tears. "Don't be afraid. She can't hurt me anymore, and she can't do anything to you."

"But - you almost died," Roxas choked, scrubbing at his eyes. "Twice."

"A lot more often than that." Roxas blinked and drew back slightly in surprise, not sure what Demyx was talking about. "But it doesn't matter anymore. I'm still alive. She'll never hurt anyone again. It's okay. It's going to be all right." Demyx gave him another hug before letting go. "All right...still have any sort of appetite? If not, you can just sit down until you feel better..."

"No, but you need food," Roxas said stubbornly, ignoring how Demyx scooted over to make a space for him on the bed. "You're the one who's seriously underweight. It would be a crime to let you go hungry just because I have no appetite." Not waiting for Demyx to say anything, he portaled down to the kitchen. Lunch was a disorganized affair today, as it usually was when Xaldin was gone, but there was a pot of noodle soup on the stove, apparently waiting for anyone who wanted some to dish themselves up a bowl. He dished up a generous bowl for Demyx, and added a buttered roll on the side, just because Demyx needed to gain some more weight. "I hope you're hungry," he said rather dryly as he opened a portal back to Demyx's room. "Even if you're not, you better eat it all."

Demyx gave him a look when he saw how full the bowl was, that only deepened when he saw the roll. "Roxas...how many of me were you hoping to feed with this?" he asked wryly as he took the bowl and started eating. "There's only one of me up here...actually, there's only about 115 pounds of me still up here. That's less of me than there should be, as we established earlier in the conversation."

"I'm trying to get you to gain weight," Roxas said very honestly. "Because, quite honestly, you're a stick and you need it."

Demyx gave him another look, but kept eating. "Do you ever do this to Axel?"

"Axel is apparently meant to be a stick. He can't gain weight."

Demyx chuckled briefly at that, then patted the free space he'd made earlier on the bed. "Go ahead, sit down. I don't bite - Gods know you gave me enough to eat that I don't have to turn to cannibalism."

Roxas couldn't help but laugh at that. "You're priceless, you know that?" he said as he sat down.

Demyx grinned at him and ruffled his hair gently. "Thanks; I feel extra-loved now." He went back to eating as Roxas made himself more comfortable. "You're a good kid, you know that?"

"You know, I seem to be the only person you ever refer to as 'a good kid'," Roxas said, finally voicing his private thoughts on the subject. "And...I'm aware that to you it's no doubt a compliment, but...it kind of seems like being damned with faint praise, if you catch my meaning."

Demyx blinked at him in surprise and frowned, as if that conclusion had honestly never occurred to him before. "Well...sorry about that, but that was never my intention," he said, looking a little shamefaced. "I...I guess, what I mean by 'good' is...fundamentally good. Someone who can be relied on to do the right thing in any circumstance, no matter how difficult, dangerous, or unpopular it is..." He paused, and gave Roxas a knowing smile. "Even if they do require a little prompting every now and again."

"Oh, come on..." Roxas gave Demyx a light punch in the shoulder, flinching a bit at how quickly he met bone. "So...I guess coming from you, it's not exactly faint praise, is it."

"Hardly." Demyx reached behind Roxas to set the remains of his lunch on the bedside table - but there was still some broth and noodles in the bowl, and the roll had gone untouched. "Sorry. I'm just not hungry anymore." Roxas picked up the roll, looking at it thoughtfully, and then glanced over at Demyx. "Go ahead, if you've managed to find your appetite. I'm not likely t- _mmmph!_" As Demyx glared at him and tried to get his mouthful down to something he could chew and swallow, Roxas tried not to laugh too loud - all right, maybe shoving the roll into Demyx's open mouth while he was in the middle of a sentence wasn't the nicest thing he could have done, but he had to admit it was funny. Besides, Demyx did need to gain weight.

* * *

AN: Fortunately for Roxas, good kids are allowed to be harmless pranksters.

I never intended for this to exist - Chapter 6 was supposed to be the end of it - but I couldn't help but continue it. By popular request.


End file.
